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A A radiant young woman sits in front of the camera, applying her makeup and reviewing her plans for the coming week. Behind her is a beautifully lit wardrobe filled with row after row of T-shirts and knitwear in various shades of grey, interspersed with designer handbags. Welcome to the world of Molly-Mae Hague, the UK’s undisputed influencer extraordinaire: here, sports and entertainment are always neutral, blow-drying is luxurious, and there’s always time for a quick, iced latte trip to Gail’s. Despite all this opulence, Hague’s chatter is endearingly normal: she does her best to point out the fact that she’s had some hacking, and that her blonde hair has been scraped back into a bun. Never mind the rogue stain, I think to myself her fake tan looks great. Can I buy it? After a few clicks, yes, I sure can.
Since entry Love Island Villa In 2019, the 25-year-old has built an impressive social media following (8.3 million on Instagram and nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube at the time of writing) and created a fashion and beauty business empire. Her next project? Molly-Mae: Behind everythingher own reality show, will arrive on Prime Video on January 17. Anticipation is high — because the series looks set to cover her much-discussed (well, discussed by everyone but her) split from fiancé and fellow Islander Tommy Fury, which sent shockwaves through millennial and Gen Z group chats last summer.
How was The Hague able to succeed where so many of its colleagues did? Love Island Have the graduates, frankly, faltered? And why does this queen of beige interest us so much? Molly-Mae’s rise is not a rags-to-riches story, but rather the steady rise and rise of a business-savvy girl from a solid middle-class background. She grew up in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, and was raised by parents who were police officers. As a teenager, she competed in beauty pageants, then joined the Fashion Retail Academy in London. Here, she said, she “fell under the influence.” sherlux. “I would ask my friends to take street style photos of me wearing my college clothes.” Her first YouTube videos covered well-traveled areas, all the high street transports and hair and makeup routines.
By the time I entered as Love Island She is the #1 “Bombshell” contestant of 2019 and has amassed 10,000 subscribers on YouTube and 100,000 followers on Instagram. She entered the villa with a peroxide complex and a dream – to grow her following and boost her personal brand. This is not a cynical reading of the dead love of the situation. In a video posted one year after her appearance on the show, she admitted that signing up was a “business move.” In 2019, Love Island She was at the height of her pop cultural supremacy, with millions of viewers tuning in every night to watch her and Fury’s romance blossom.
The Hague clearly had an eye on its “outsider” reputation, but its relationship also seemed nice. The moment when Tommy returns to the villa after a few days of hanging out with a new group of female contestants at Casa Amor, clutching Molly’s beloved toy as a token of his undying devotion, was worthy of an ITV2 Richard Curtis rom-com. And who can forget Molly lurking behind a potted plant, where the greenery fails to obscure her towering cake, spying on Tommy’s conversation with new contestant Maura Higgins? She and Fiore eventually came in third place, but by the time the Mallorcan summer was over, The Hague’s Instagram following had reached 2 million (so who was the real winner?).
What then is the specific appeal of The Hague? She occupies an unusual middle ground: between ambition and every-girl relatability. She carries Chanel bags but loves Zara. Her £3.8m Cheshire mansion (aka Molly-Maison) is filled with high-end versions of the logo prints you see on Etsy, as well as bargain pieces from Primark and Homesense. Basically, she’s a classy person — and while her Instagram grid is a shiny showcase, it’s attractively vulnerable on YouTube. She often appears without makeup and wearing pajamas or sports clothes. And she’s funny and self-deprecating, whether she’s wondering whether she accidentally served her employees a raw carrot cake at their office “bake-off” or over-ordered Chinese food with her sister Zoe (and then documented their post-takeout slump). .
While she might seem guarded in more traditional interviews – after her interview in Britain Vogue magazinebroadcaster Serene described Callie Hague as adhering to “the strict formalities of a princess on a royal visit” — watching her videos is a bit like receiving a one-way FaceTime from a school friend she’s known for years. And for all the politeness, she can be bravely honest about issues that will affect her young female fans as well. In 2020, she revealed that she was working on dissolving her facial fillers, in an attempt to stop the “normalization” of this treatment among young women. The following year, she spoke about her experience with endometriosis, including her seven-year path to diagnosis. She was candid about the ups and downs of motherhood after giving birth to her and Fury’s daughter Bambi, who is now almost two years old.
Her relationship with boxer Fury (who is the younger half-brother of former heavyweight champion Tyson) had a prom king and queen vibe about it. Yes, Fury’s 2023 wedding proposal had Hollywood production value and included a ring rumored to be worth £600,000. But they also shared photos of quiet nights and movie dates (Molly’s Instagram rule the popular artistic horror film Saint Maud? (“I’m shocked at how terrible this movie is”) and they felt each other up on camera. Deputy They summed it up well in 2021 when they described the pair as a “basic but lovable couple.”
It has acquired a fashion character while maintaining its originality
But The Hague’s success is not simply a result of his likable relatability. While others Love Island Alumni often fall into the trap of posting a #sponcon scattergun, bashing everything from whitening toothpaste to cryptocurrency charts, and Hague has played a longer, smarter game. Instead of attaching her name to anything old, she focused on collaborating with brands she would use or wear anyway. Consider her team with Beauty Works, which includes hair extensions and styling tools. Or her much-vaunted role as creative director at PrettyLittleThing, a fast-fashion label that very much embodies… Love Island aesthetic. This high-profile gig is rumored to have earned her £5 million a year, until her resignation in 2023.
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She has also monetized parts of her signature looks. The Molly-Mae filter promises a glowing tan in a bottle. And Maeby, the fashion line she launched last fall, mainly offers versions of her favorite clothes. Think oversized square-shouldered sweaters, wide-leg jeans in faded tones, and cozy knits in her signature neutral color palette. It’s essentially the Gen Z equivalent of Kate Moss’s Topshop line, as it offers younger shoppers a chance to wear clothes that look exactly like their style icon (although the high prices have sparked some complaints on social media).
This business acumen has steadily elevated her to a unique position in the UK influencer ecosystem. Where other island residents relied on riding the vortex of reality shows appearing after the villa, and moving between Dancing on ice, I’m a celebrity and Celebrities go datingShe has risen to a higher level of celebrity, continuing to share her life on social media but doing so on her own terms. It has also acquired a fashion stamp while maintaining its originality. She could appear on the red carpet at Cannes for a week and then share a video about, say, going out to buy Starbucks the next day.
However, not everyone warmed to its specific charm. In fact, despite the everyday nature of the photos, videos, and conversations she spreads into the digital ether, she has become a surprisingly divisive figure. Sometimes, scandals feel like a storm in a teacup, like the time she had to apologize to the Italian nation after she unilaterally described their cuisine as “bleak.” But one of her biggest controversies came when she appeared on Stephen Bartlett’s show Diary of a CEO podcast in early 2021. While answering questions about her meteoric rise to the top of the influencer food chain, she told the podcast’s lead advocate Huel that “Beyoncé has the same 24 hours in a day that we do.” To double down on the Girl President’s logic, she added that “if you want something bad enough, you can achieve it, it just depends on how far you want to go.”
People were saying, “It’s Princess Diana and Charles.”
Molly-Mae Hague after her split from Tommy Fury
These fridge magnet proverbs landed with a thud. She has been stigmatized as out of touch with reality, unaware of her privilege, and an example of “boss” individualism; Someone even changed her surname to “Thatcher” on her Wikipedia page. The statements were particularly jarring, in an interview that touted The Hague’s major role in fast fashion. About a year before Hague was appointed, he was undercover Sunday Times The report claimed that workers at a Leicester factory linked to PLT’s parent company Boohoo were being paid just £3.50 an hour. Boohoo said at the time that the conditions were “completely unacceptable,” adding that the Jaswal Fashions factory was not a direct supplier; The brand also said it would “take immediate action to conduct a thorough investigation into how they obtained our clothes.” The disparity between these headlines and Hague’s multi-million pay check seemed particularly stark.
These mistakes might have been enough to bring down another influencer, but Molly-Mae proved largely unsinkable. This is probably due to the sheer size and dedication of her fan base. Perhaps the truth is that, in fairness, she’s not afraid to issue an admission of guilt: “I apologize to people who were negatively affected or who misunderstood the meaning of what I said on the podcast,” she said after the event ended. Diary of a CEO disaster. “The intentions of the podcast were just to tell my story and inspire from my own experience.”
Last year, her breakup with Fury cracked their golden marital veneer, and she seemed to experience a collective softening of attitudes: This was, after all, a young mother dealing with a messy, painful situation in public. Some even painted her as the People’s Princess of the 2020s: “People would say, ‘It’s Princess Diana and Charles,'” Haig noted in her book. Vogue magazine interview.
So what will her documentary bring? Producers have promised that the first three parts of the exhibition (more are expected to arrive in the spring) will provide a “comprehensive” look at “The Hague that no one has seen before.” Expect Hague to be in complete control of the narrative, though she is simply too skilled a worker to do otherwise. It’s Molly-Mae’s world – we just live (and shop) in it.